Make America Great?
March 1, 2024
Our kitchen cupboards are full. Our refrigerator is full. My freezer in the basement is full. Our pantry cupboard in the basement is full, Our refrigerator in the basement is half full. And, I’m Retired!
There are two Convenient Stores and a Pizza Shop a block and a half away. We have Fast Food Restaurants , it seems like, on every corner. Also, there are two Drug Stores and one Grocery Store within 3 miles of the end of our driveway.
Their shelves are packed.
Their warehouses are packed.
People from all over the world want to come here so they and their families can thrive along with us.
As for ourselves, we have a sustaining monthly income thanks to a progressive government program, called Social Security, which we and our Employers contributed to, throughout our work lives, through weekly paycheck deductions.
We live in a modest house built in 1946. It has a nice backyard for our grandkids to play in. It’s a nice neighborhood with a nearby Elementary School. It sure has no resemblance to a hard life.
Our Town Board has monthly public meetings where we can express our concerns, and usually, the doors are open, and we can walk in anytime to talk to someone. Our Town has a Fire Department supported by Volunteer Firemen. Rescue Paramedics are just minutes away, and so are the Hospitals. We have a half dozen or more Christian Churches who support the community morally and with people’s everyday needs.
We have a Central High School — all with Students who participate in Art, and Sports, and Community Benevolent Programs.
We have 2 State Parks, Walkways, and Bicycle Paths. We are surrounded by the freshwater Mighty Niagara River — from which we draw drinking water and water for our lawns and gardens — and that with a simple turn of a handle.
America is pretty darn great, if you ask me (but, of course. nobody ever does). Still, I have no idea what some people think will make America “great again.” It already is.
Sure. There are pockets of poverty, rougher neighborhoods, and more run- down housing, but I have something to say about such things further on down in this essay…
What people are so worked up about is penny-ante crap, conjured up by manipulative malcontents, people with power and position, people who are supposed to know better, more informed from us “common folk,” but they are unprincipled frauds with alternative motives, whipping up good- natured citizens and using us to accomplish goals for their own self-promoting power, prestige, and wealth.
Most of us are not liars or cheats. So, we have a particularly difficult time imagining that there actually are people who will do so and will say anything to influence and even overpower our sense of right and wrong to accomplish their devious and selfish goals.
If we good citizens would realize their deceit and be more thankful for what we already have — and have had for generations — just maybe people would be more inclined to work together to solve our persistent problems, instead of getting so bent out of shape that we can’t think straight, choosing the split-second reaction of looking for someone to blame — as if blaming others could ever be a fix for anything.
Why can’t we all just get it together and get moving?
It just seems to me that becoming grateful for all the good things we do have would be a strong foundation on which to build a solution-oriented culture instead of this oppositional-culture we have chosen to surround ourselves with.
I’m not blind to the problems we have in this country…
There are pockets of food deserts and areas of healthcare insecurity. Sure.
There are problems with crime, homicides, child abuse, teenage suicides, and so on. Yes.
And yes. We may disagree on the best solutions for many things. But we cannot drag our feet when our neighbors are in dire straits!
I was always proud of the fact that any half dozen of my coworkers could sit down together in our little warm-up room and solve any problem big or small in a matter of minutes — No. Really. I’m not kidding! We just didn’t have the power to put them into effect… We called it Freezer Burn. because we worked in 30 below storage freezers. Maybe as we thawed, our minds were also freed from their frozen glacial condition…
Anyways… Yes. There are mental and social frustrations even making people ill, sometimes forcing them to act out in harmful ways — even to the desperate destructive point of suicide, homicide, drug abuse… But there is absolutely no reason why we cannot solve all these problems. Aren’t we supposed to be the most intelligent beings on Earth? Sometimes it seems that we don’t act like it…
There are no problems which are insurmountable. We can fix things — if we, as a group, or even as individuals, finally choose to begin to fix them…
If we choose.
And we must choose , or we will lose everything.
https://www.google.com/search — Jackie DeShannon — What The World Needs Now (1965)
https://www.youtube.com/watch? — Dionne Warwick — What The World Needs Now (1966)
Talking To Jesus | Elevation Worship & Maverick City
